Naenuhlae - Sweet Dreams - Tumblr Blog

Plague of Athens

I was inspired to make a personification of a plague.

Day 3 - Sand

Day 2 - Demon

A crystallized demon queen from the underworld. I almost thought I wouldn’t be able to finish her by the end of the day! 

10 Character Drawings

Since there are 10 days left in December, I have decided to do 10 character drawings using one word each day. I coded a word generator with exactly 402 different words that I thought would work well, and this is the result...

1. Spring

2. Demon

3. Sand

4. Hearts

5. Monochromatic

6. Healing

7. Ice

8. Faded

9. Vampire

10. Fungus

So, here is the 1st word: Spring!

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, as different as it was from my initial idea. I did want her to be nature-ish, but not completely made out of tree. I just got carried away with all the lines! Either way, I am pleased with the result. :)

I also uploaded a speedpaint:

Novah - Sketch

My new pens are FANTASTIC. I also discovered that a few of them are glitter pens, which could be interesting.

Either way, I am super psyched about the way this turned out! I’ve decided to give Novah more of a cheerful disposition than originally thought. I’m extremely pleased with the result and have started to play with the idea of making her the scrap-techie of the group (drew a compressed crossbow brace on her arm for fun and I think I’m sticking with the idea).

It’s fun bringing my characters to life, so I may continue...

Aaro

Started messing around with a fresh sketchbook and new gel pens... Aaro is the result. Probably my favorite out of the concepts I’ve made so far. I especially like how the shoulder armor turned out. Almost added a bit of gold color to his eyes, but I didn’t want to risk ruining the piece.

Considering I am not very good at sketching the male figure, this has been a vast improvement from my previous work (I dare not show them to ANYONE).

Next step - create a digital version!

Writing Time...

NaNoWriMo has come, and I finally started on a novel. Better late than never!

I’ve decided on a story about dragons, an old friendship, an unlikely mother and daughter, and a quest to understand the misunderstood. 

They stood in a circle, analyzing the girl in front of them. She stared wide-eyed back at them. Her anger had vanished, and fear replaced the hatred that once lay behind her eyes. They were no longer icy and cold, but bright and pure, like the sky on a cloudless day. The elders examined the black dirt covering her body, the tangles and branches in her hair, and especially her sharp nails and teeth. They were fascinated.

Out came the ancient texts and books of wisdom. They smelled musty and sent dust into the air when opened. The yellowed pages were covered in scrawled text and ink-drawn images of all sorts of unimaginable horrors. Monsters and creatures of enormous size, human deformities, mutated wounds, curses and sickness, plants that spewed poison and ate human flesh, and of course, dragons.

Samuel had never seen so many kinds of dragons. He hadn’t known before now that there even existed different species. There were serpents, dragons that lurked at the bottom of lakes and seas, ones that were covered in deadly spikes, two and three headed beasts, ones with more than four limbs, more than one set of wings, with no eyes, and thousands of teeth. Dragons that had a jaw so massive that it spanned their entire body, ones that spewed molten gold, liquid flames, or with breath so horrifying that life around them died instantly. It was utterly horrifying. If the others knew or saw what was written in these books, no soul would ever step foot into Urgenwald again. They would flee the village and never return, and none of the of-age boys would ever join hunt-fest. Samuel certainly knew he wouldn’t have.

The elder stopped turning the pages. He had come across a drawing of a boy amid deadly creatures. Samuel inspected closer. He could not read, but the image said everything he needed to know. The boy in the drawing was Samuel’s age, no more than 16 summers old. But he wasn’t only a boy, he was something else. Half human, half dragon. Scales were embedded in his skin, and small spikes poked through what was left of his hair and out of his shoulders. He almost no longer had hands and fingers, they resembled claws or talons more than human fingers. And from his back sprouted small wings, not fully formed. He stood in an unnatural position, and his arms were longer than the average boy’s. But what stood out most was his face. His eyes were slits like a snake’s, and a long, forked tongue slinked out from a mouth full of pointed teeth.

The elders murmured to each other and glanced between the open page and the girl.

NOVAH

Novah grew up in a wasteland not far from the Acid Patch, the largest known acid swamp. She lived with her loving parents, who kept her as hidden as they possibly could. Consequently, she had no friends and spent most of her time alone in the bunker they called home or in the Acid Patch.

Her time was spent practicing something. Sketching didn’t require much material. She could scrape designs in the barren ground or take bits of charcoal from the fire and draw on the bunker walls. The home was covered in drawings. When space ran out, she would wipe her least favorite work of art and start anew. On her 13th birthday, her parents managed to get their hands on an old blank journal, which Novah treasured dearly. 

In addition to the sketches she drew in this journal, Novah documented her findings and fascinations of the Acid Patch. She fashioned herself a pair of boots on metal platforms so she could walk through the acid puddles and ditches without getting burned. She drew maps of the landmarks and detailed explanations of the coloring and strength of each puddle. She noted permanent bogs and seasonal ponds and puddles. And because of her knowledge, she was one of the few who could venture far into the Acid Patch. This became her quiet place, her place to practice her Talent.

Novah’s Talent was summoning bladed weapons. Knives, swords, spears, axes, anything with a razor sharp blade on it. Out of boredom she practiced so much that she became quite skilled and experienced. When her parents where home, they taught her defense combat, in case a wanderer with ill intention showed up. Her father was a leader in the Wasted War, and he taught Novah strategies and battlefield concepts. She became a master in close combat and an excellent strategist.

Her world was simple and easy to understand. Not many wanderers stumbled across the bunker, and the family was not plagued by Skrii attacks. Unbeknownst to Novah, the reason for this was a deal her parents made long ago. When she was less than a year old, the Skrii ransacked the camp she and her family where in. Novah’s mother had been involved in a few exchanges with the Skrii when she was a teenager, so the Skrii offered to make a deal. The Skrii came with a man name Mordoa, who’s Talent was identifying Talent class and future potential of others. Mordoa saw Novah’s talent and potential for combat. The Skrii offered protection to Novah and her protection under the condition that Novah become a Skrii member and join their numbers on her 16th birthday. Her parents had no choice.

The following year, the Skrii visited the family bunker and tattood the Skrii mark on Novah’s arm. Her parents never explained why she possessed this tattoo, but they told her that she had to hide the mark from anyone she came across, as they might try to kill her.

On her 16th birthday, her parents were frantic. They told Novah to hide somewhere in the Acid Patch, and not to return until the smoke of the bunker fire disappeared. Novah did as told, and spent a fortnight wandering in the Acid Patch, surviving on birds and other creatures that died in the puddles. The Skrii gave up the search, killed Novah’s parents and stuck them on pikes outside the bunker. 

Novah returned to the bunker, starved and exhausted, to find her parents’ corpses. She ran, horrified, until she couldn’t run further and collapsed in a pile. For two years she traveled from city to village to city again, searching for something. The only item she had from home was the journal. 

That’s when Kira found her...

The Apocalyptic Future

I regarded the group of disturbed individuals I was keeping company. Each had their own messed up story as to how they found themselves here. How we found each other. Souls drawn together for some unknown reason on some unknown path.

Kira was the first. Perhaps it was Kör? They met in some way, I just don’t know how or when. What I do know is that the two of them were stolen from their tribes after it had been destroyed by the Skrii. The became slaves in Saltcisie, where Kira’s visions and dreams lead them to their escape.

Kira and Kör found Grey aimlessly wandering in an acid swamp. She was searching for anyone left from her tribe. When she was 10 she ran off to escape her cleaning duties. Upon her return, everything was wiped out. Not a soul breathed, not even the creatures they called pets. Since then, she’s wandered. That is, until Kira’s visions found her.

Erin was next. She was abandoned as a baby. Left in the Forest of Lost Souls to die. The animals that lived there adopted her as their own, as her shape-shifting tricked them into thinking she was one of them. She has become attached to Grey since they met, since Grey has been teaching Erin how to speak.

And then there is Novah. Bubbly and bright eyed, her specialty of weapons doesn’t fit her personality. Unlike most in the hash landscape we live in, she was fortunate to have a loving family. Unfortunately, like most, they died at the hands of the Skrii. How she managed to escape their wrath, I don’t know. Every now and then I catch her staring into the campfire during her shift, eyes glazed over with her signature smile wiped away.

Five lost, broken, and just plain fucked up strangers, and me. The useless one. With no memory prior to a couple weeks ago, when Kira found me curled in a fetal position in a ditch. The only thing I knew was my name. Aaro. I can’t fight, don’t have a Talent to speak for, in other words, useless. These five fucked up strangers are the only thing between me and certain death. That begs the question, why are they helping me? Where are we going?

I have a gut feeling that we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing...